Yemeni combat drone targets Saudi mercenaries in Hudaydah: Report

This file picture, provided by the media bureau of Yemen’s Operations Command Center, shows a Qasif-1 (Striker-1) combat drone on display in the Yemeni capital city of Sana’a.

Yemeni army soldiers, backed by allied fighters from Popular Committees, have reportedly launched an airstrike against a position of Saudi-sponsored militiamen loyal to Yemen's former president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, in the country’s western coastal province of Hudaydah.

A Yemeni military source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Yemeni soldiers and their allies attacked Saudi mercenaries in the Anbarah military base on Wednesday, using a domestically-designed and –manufactured Qasif-1 (Striker-1) combat drone.

Later in the day, Yemeni troopers and Popular Committees fighters fired two home-grown Zelzal-1 (Earthquake-1) ballistic missiles at the gatherings of Saudi soldiers and their mercenaries south of the al-Khobe district in Saudi Arabia’s southwestern border region of Jizan, located 966 kilometers (600 miles) south of the capital, Riyadh.

There were no immediate reports about possible casualties or the extent of damage caused.

Also on Wednesday, five civilians lost their lives when Saudi fighter jets struck al-Jaah area in Yemen’s Hudaydah province.

A civilian was also killed and another sustained injuries when Saudi warplanes bombarded Barkan area in the Razih district of Yemen’s northwestern mountainous province of Sa’ada.

Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched a devastating military campaign against Yemen in March 2015, with the aim of bringing the government of Hadi back to power and crushing the country’s popular Houthi Ansarullah movement.

A Yemeni woman sits next to a child suffering from malnutrition on a hospital bed at a treatment center in the capital Sana’a on October 6, 2018. (Photo by AFP)

The aggression has killed some 15,000 people and injured thousands more.

More than 2,200 others have died of cholera, and the crisis has triggered what the United Nations has described as the world's worst humanitarian disaster.